Electric Ladyland

in search of the ultimate bowl of ramen

my fellow foodie of an oniichan told me long ago (several times even) that i should watch tampopo.  finally did and i plan on writing him a rave review with a big fat thank you inside.  anyone who gets a little too food-focused (who me?) should watch this movie.  (who, you too?)  i got it from the library since netflix doesn't have it yet.  it's better than eat drink man woman and like water for chocolate.  these people are obsessed, right down to the woman who gets up from her deathbed to make her family a last meal and then, upon hearing "umai" ("it's good!"), smiles and drops dead.  they start crying and the father turns to say "now eat up!  fast!  it's the last meal you're ever gonna get from your mom and it's going cold!"

man, i had dinner already but i'm getting hungry all over again!

the french have a name for it

came up with another kitchen sink dish today.  i'm sure the french have a name for this, only i don't know what it is.  my simplified beginner's take on beef bourgignon?  well it has beef and it has burgundy...

here's the story.  i sauteed a medium onion in butter, then started adding stock to thicken a sauce.  sliced two roma tomatoes lengthwise and added them to the mix.  let bubble for a long time.  added three small beef steaks.  seasoned everything, then let it simmer for a while.  then began pouring in the contents of a mini bottle of burgundy someone had given me a long time ago.  let that all simmer for the better part of an hour.

my roommate came home commenting on how great it smelled in the kitchen.  by then the sauce had thickened and taken on a luxurious sheen.  i ladled everything into a container alongside a batch of rice, then decorated it with five pitted provencal olives.  i managed not to eat much of this but instead let it sit overnight.  tomorrow's lunch will be extra special.

spring's full flowering

today and yesterday notwithstanding, the weather has been glorious lately.  spring is here.

on saturday i went to the met museum to see its current japanese art exhibition, a sensitivity to the seasons:  spring and summer.  i'd breezed by it around christmastime when i took dad to see the segovia guitar in the musical instruments wing.  at that time i wasn't overly wowed by the japanese exhibition but i thought i might just be suffering from museum fatigue.

this time around i went expressly to see the japanese exhibition and while it was okay in parts, it didn't strike a chord in me nearly the way last year's kano school exhibition did.  there was a lovely piece by koetsu hon'ami that resonated a bit and i was tickled to be able to place him in historical context thanks to all the NHK taiga dramas i've been watching.  i also became aware of isai katsushika for the first time and saw a winter farming scene of his laid out across a fan that reminded me of hokusai's evening snow at kanbara.  otherwise, though, the exhibition didn't heighten my awareness of the seasons much.

how fortunate, then, that i decided to take the long route back to the subway.  spring was rioting right outside the met!  sometimes the original is better.  i'd only planned to take a brisk stroll through the park on my way home, but the vivid green landscapes took me by surprise and i found myself snapping photos left and right.  the height of spring only lasts for a short while so i decided to stay a while and enjoy the beauty of it all.

there were bright pink kwanzan cherry trees bursting out all over with blossoms and demanding to be paid homage.  some of them had dark brown branches all akimbo at hard angles calling to mind some of the artwork i'd just seen in the met.

another view of the cherries...

and here is a quick snapshot of a more typically japanese cherry tree (i'm guessing yoshino?) in early bloom.  this was closer to an area where i'd enjoyed hanami with some friends a few years back.  those trees are now fenced in and you can't sit under them anymore, alas.

although cherry blossoms are the classic symbol of spring in the japanese tradition, i'm partial to lilies of the valley.  i couldn't quite get close enough for a detailed shot of those delicate white bells, but this is fair enough.

i'm also fond of forsythia.  they surrounded the first house i remember growing up in and every spring there was a golden glow outside our kitchen window when these flowers suddenly made their presence known.  there were violets both purple and white striped with purple dotting various grassy areas in the park.  they're nostalgic for me too because my mom once made candied violets for me when i was a kid.  i thought that was the neatest thing ever. 

since i've had some time off from work recently i've been focusing back on things japan-related, gearing up for another push at improving my language and calligraphy skills.  my goal for this coming year now that i've passed JLPT level 2 is to learn all the joyo kanji.  that's 1,945 characters, not that anyone's counting (cough).  JLPT level 2 means you've already got 1,000 or more under your belt so this means i have to double what i know now.  bring it on, i say!  i'm all excited to get started.

this coming week i'll start back with the calligraphy as well.  our spring term begins soon and i've had some time to practice at home, which was nice.  there was a moment as i was completing a downward brushtroke just over a week ago when my mind finally undocked and set itself free.  no thoughts.  when things are going right, that's just the state you want to be in. 

the drama continues

last night i went to sleep a little after 1.  biff was yelling at buffy through the wall about the money thing again, also asking if she'd slept with another guy.  i wake up, 8:30 a.m., and he's still going!  i think they've been at it all night.  woah!

love me, love my accountant

oh the drama is not over.  a midnight phone call arrives on the other side of the wall.  biff is dropping f-bombs and yelling "buffy, no, STOP, buffy!"  i'm hearing something about him owing her $6K?  something about accountants and retainers?  whoo boy.

weekend report

the weekend was really good.  got some much-needed rest.  saturday was a pajama day, the first i've had in recent memory.  before this past saturday, i can't remember the last time i just lazed around in my pajamas all day.  it was pretty restorative soul-wise.  my buddy cw (wassup?  you reading?) came over and we watched capote while munching on disturbingly sweet microwave popcorn.  wasn't so into the popcorn but capote was great.  wow. 

there was a slight disturbance in the force from time to time -- neighbors shouting.  she recommended that i post about it on my blog.  baby, i'm already there.  update on the neighbor drama:  a new name has appeared handwritten in pen above the place where biff's was scribbled out.  hm.  we'll see where this leads.

yesterday i hit the gym (ow) and met up with my study partner, who just got back from a quick trip to japan.  got to see the photos and hear how it was for him being back for the first time since JET.  we're going to start studying japanese again this coming weekend.  we're starting with some serious kanji crunching and i know if we work as hard as last year he will pass the 2006 2kyu.  all right, let's do it!

for my part, i'm glad to be studying again.  all this work is exciting but one needs balance in life as well.  japan is my antidote.  i've been keeping up with the samurai dramas and learning waaay more than i ever expected to about those dudes.  cool moment:  yesterday morning i watched an episode of "koumyou ga tsuji" in which oda nobunaga named gifu-ken (well, gifu anyway at that time).  he unveiled it grandly on a scroll.  nice calligraphy.  it's always cool when you get to witness a moment in history, as it were.

also went to see rikidozan yesterday at japan society.  great movie about a famous sumo wrestler turned pro wrestler who became a patriotic symbol during japan's early postwar years but was actually korean.  very sad story but also an interesting look back at what japanese society was like then. 

all in all, a good weekend.  this week will be short because of the passover holidays so i think i'll get past the usual cycle of recovering from work and actually move ahead into some things i've been wanting to do for myself for a while but haven't had the time for.  we'll see how that goes.

live to eat

it was a tough week made tougher by the absence of good food.  not any more -- i hit whole foods last night and emerged with a good assortment of treasures which i plan to ravish throughout the weekend and coming week.  one such item:  34 degrees marinated feta cheese from australia.  and yes, as the label recommends, i am eating it shamelessly straight from the tub!

i've been unable to sleep well for the past few weeks.  i think it's a combination of job stress and the change of the seasons.  one night i went on my semi-regular net foray to see if there are more franco-american fora out there than there were before.  i'm particularly enjoying the group blog superfrenchie right now.  they just put up a post on bread that i found appealing.  it started with "one of the most undisputed clichés about the french is their passion for food in general and bread in particular. bread, cheese, wine, what could be more french?"

i looked up, slightly guilty, from the hunk of kalamata bread slathered with marinated feta that i'd just been devouring.  was someone watching me?   how'd they know?

i read -- and ate -- on.  nice post.  very interesting things about bread that i'd never read before. one of the comments on that post referenced some cultural practice related to the placement or selection of bread that i was unaware of (a certain part given to the executioner in ancient times?).  i'm not surprised that an american has gone to these lengths in his quest to discover the origins of good food.  we have more at stake here in the land of mcdonald's and plastic, tasteless candy everywhere you turn.  think of it as a patriotic duty not to fall victim to mass-produced food with no character, no history and no soul. 

oh, and another reason i like superfrenchie -- they sell stickers that say "annoy bill o'reilly:  buy french products."  for me that's like killing two birds with one stone. 

in other news, my study partner's back from japan so i'm going to get the full debriefing when we hang out tomorrow.  i'm looking forward to hearing all the stories about his trip there.  in short, he said a lot of his impressions were like the ones i had when i visited back in november.  it'll be good to compare notes.

and there's still plenty of movement next door.  an angry woman (buffy?) shouted and stomped down the stairs out the front door a while ago and biff, well, he's still working his emotions out.  with drama like this who cares if my netflix rentals are late in arriving.  anyway, i've been watching the new doctor who lately as well as keeping up with my taiga dramas so i'm fine. 

the word through the wall: breakups suck

i was hanging out in our living room tonight around dinnertime, near the front door, and i heard him come up the stairs on the way to his apartment. he dropped his keys trying to open his front door and then stopped and laughed that "dear god my life sucks" laugh that comes out when you've really hit rock bottom.  last night it was singing along to "the rising," tonight there's just full-on sobbing, "i love you" being wailed at what i'm guessing is his phone on the line to her, and the occasional slamming of doors.  i don't think i've ever heard a guy go through a painful breakup before.  even my close guy friends kept the real raw pain to themselves.  this one is bad all right.

everybody's got a hungry heart

as if life weren't exciting enough on its own, i've had a side helping of vicarious drama for the past few weeks.  it's time to share.  last month there was a loud fight next door at my neighbor's place and then one roommate's name -- let's say it was biff -- was scratched out on their mailbox not too long after.  i thought the two guys had a big falling out or something, but it's more complicated than that.

last week i was sitting in my room minding my own business, watching the daily show or something if i recall, when all of a sudden through my wall i started hearing biff yelling "no YOU shut the f*** up!" and then f-this and f-that, so many f-bombs that i could have easily retired to fiji by now had someone given me a dollar for each of them.  ok, i thought, so he's back for some reason and the two roomies are fighting again?

nope.  turns out the reason he moved was to be with his beloved, we'll call her buffy, but it went horribly wrong.  apparently biff and buffy have had been together for five years and had just decided to move in together.  that would explain the olympic-style 9.0 orgasms coming through the wall just before the fighting started (go team!) - they were obviously reaching an apex in more ways than one. 

from what i couldn't help but hear through the wall between "no, buffy, stop.  STOP!" and "will you f***ing STOP IT?  buffy.  BUFFY!", biff really screwed things up big time.  he got really verklempt saying "i know i f***ed things up really badly and lost the woman i was planning on spending the rest of my life with.  now all i can do is move on."  don't know what he did but it must have been bad because she apparently kicked him out and declared that if he ever wanted to get his stuff back he'd have to fork over some cash. 

don't know where it stands now but a young woman, presumably buffy, was making a highly emotional phone call from our front gate and then was let in for a little while at about 2 a.m. last night / early this morning.  that may have worsened things because there's a little male therapy going on now -- i don't take it as a good sign that biff is singing along to bruce springsteen's "the rising." 

damn.

right as rain

back to monday and i had this work thing i had to go do.  wasn't at my desk for much of the day in fact.  however, that wasn't going to prevent me from observing one of the holiest days of the year:  opening day.  sox win 7-2.  thanks to the wonders of mlb.tv i snuck a peek at curt schilling holding court as i was winding down from the megameeting.  he seemed to be in good form.

of course i've been in touch with the home office to speculate about this quite a bit over the past week.  we've kept the hot stove warm all winter but it's time to put that away now.  it's baseball season again and life makes sense.  there are a bunch of people on the sox who i don't know now but coco crisp (tee hee) has already made a nice little catch for his debut and i am really looking forward to seeing what josh beckett can do in a boston uniform.

that still doesn't erase two questions i have:  how whoever that guy we got for third base could be an upgrade from bill mueller and why on earth we signed tavarez.  apparently i'm not the only one who thinks the man is batsh**.  wells was pulling some prima donna antics trying to get traded and then demanding to start second.  ahem, no.  francona's pitching wake tomorrow.  right on.